Flavorful World’s Friday Fourplay offers up a bite-sized tidbit of info on each of the four food- and drink-related things we found most interesting each week.

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Pumpkin Spice (FanFic) Begins!

Okay, I think we all saw this coming. Let’s not pretend we didn’t. We’ve been headed here for years; ever since we lost our collective minds over the mere potential for a pumpkin spiced latte shortage. so we needn’t cry about it now. Sure, these might fall just short of fulfilling Rule No. 34 in a way as redolent with whiffs of cinnamon and nutmeg as with firm plantings of tongue into cheek. Sure there might be no justification for their existence that doesn’t require one to bend one’s sense of the appropriate until it snaps in two. But for better or worse, there is now Pumpkin Spice-themed Fan Fiction. And it’s here because we let it happen…

(Removing tongue from cheek now, as the stories at the link below are pretty entertaining…)

Table No. 5, a sandwich shop in Pakistan has earned a place on the very short list of restaurants in the world that I must reject out of hand without having experienced their menu. Its current marketing campaign is built around naming sandwiches after celebrities known as much for their violent tendencies toward women as for their talents, like Chris Brown, Charlie Sheen, and others. The sandwich names are deliberately misspelled, perhaps to stave off litigation from the referenced celebs, however, few are finding any humor in the campaign, wacky typos notwithstanding. Whether the intent was to offend people (a Table No. 5 rep told BuzzFeed that it was not) hardly matters at this point. A joke’s a joke, sure. I love jokes. However the bad taste this leaves in my mouth has little to do with the actual food. And not only because I don’t relish the thought of putting anything that’s ever been even loosely associated with Dr. Huxtable in my mouth.

Sculptural/Wedding cake designer and baker Christine Jensen of Peboryon Cakes might be an honest-to-goodness real life Jedi. Claiming to have drawn on the Force, she has created a cake sculpted to look like instantly-recognizable Jedi master Yoda of Star Wars franchise fame. Not a bad feat, but for someone who makes her living doing this sort of thing, not as impressive as the fact that Jensen’s Yoda is in turn utilizing the Force to levitate a second cake. Visitors to the 2015 Cake International Show where her creation was displayed marveled at how the upper tier of the 2-tier layer cake appears to hover in midair above the lower layer. It’s a display made even more impressive once you realize the cake doesn’t just hover without support, but it also spins. For now, Jensen is keeping mum about how she pulled it off. Blame her, I do not. [Video courtesy of SWNS TV YouTube channel]

The ePint is a smart mug. It’s so smart that it not only tracks your drinks (and alerts you when it’s empty like only a true and conscientious wingmug would do) it is also Bluetooth-equipped, with a bottle opener built into its underside. It can be programmed to wear your favorite sports team’s color, and can even call you a taxi home if you should overindulge in the libations. As of this writing, its Kickstarter campaign still has a few miles to go, however interested parties willing to invest $30 or more can score their own ePint. If it can be programmed to laugh at my inebriated jokes and return a chest bump like a man, then I think this invention could spell the beginning of a beautifully besotted friendship.

Mention of a product, good, or service in a Friday Fourplay posting does not constitute and should not be interpreted as an endorsement either from Anthony Beal or Flavorful World LLC. Vendors are not notified ahead of time that their products/services will be featured, thus Flavorful World will at the time of posting have had no related interactions with said vendors or any sample of their products/services by which to judge them. As such, we have no idea what these vendors are like to work with, or about the quality of their merchandise and are unqualified to vouch for them as reputable. Our Friday Fourplay lists are posted in the spirit of our having come across something that looks and sounds engaging, and thinking that perhaps our readers will think so too; no more, no less. With that in mind, patronize these establishments and vendors at your own risk.